Category Archives: essentials

Teaching Adverbs, Noun of Direct Address, and Appositives One of my favorite ways to teach is to build a sentence. We began my class with a simple imperative sentence and then added the pieces we are practicing today. We started with “Sing a song,” which is a simple imperative sentence. I asked my class, “Who

One skill that we learn in Essentials grammar program (of Classical Conversations) is to combine sentences using who-which clauses. Technically speaking, these clauses are relative adjective clauses using the relative pronouns who or which. But the IEW curriculum simply calls these “who-which” clauses, to make the idea approachable to students. So, how do we

What does my child need to be successful in Essentials? How do I make sure my child is learning enough but not too overwhelmed? Is the guide (the curriculum) enough? Or do I need to add extra practice? We worry over the details of the curriculum. First year students seem overwhelmed. Third year students may

To wrap our English grammar (Essentials) class, we are going to look at a few Scripture verses. I picked a few verses that incorporate many things that we have learned: various sentence patterns verbals – gerunds, participles, and infinitives clauses noun of direct of address and imperatives Since the verses are long, I typed them

In the last few weeks of our grammar class, we have learned about indirect objects, direct objects, objects of the preposition, object complement nouns, and object complement adjectives. My students can figure some of these out when the pattern is predictable, but are they able to apply what they learned when the sentence patterns are

Before teaching grammar, I had never heard of object complement nouns or object complement adjectives. I didn’t recognize it as a sentence pattern. But when I had to teach it, I realized these sentences were EVERYWHERE. To me, the funny one was “These pretzels are making me thirsty!” My kids recognize this from the TV

These are the sentences I used for my Essentials (grammar 4th-6th graders) class. These sentences are complex, imperative. Caroline, send Hadassah a text message about the assignment when you have finished it. Charlotte, bring your friend Hannah a pillow because she looks sleepy. Ben, send Kyle a postcard when you arrive. Make me an offer

Lists of principle parts of a verb seems boring and completely unnecessary. What does this information mean? How do we help our children connect with this material? It helps to understand where we are going. In the Essentials Program, 4th-6th graders will learn these principle parts of the verbs, learning to conjugate verbs. The

For those interested in more practice sentences, I have a printable resource for you! This is a great review for weeks 1-9 of Essentials or for any student in the beginning stages of diagramming sentences.